One big reason the University of Southern California football team was perhaps one fourth-down carry – and one incandescent performance from Texas quarterback Vince Young – from winning three consecutive national championships was running back LenDale White. A three-time all-Colorado performer and the all-time state leader in rushing yards at the time he signed with USC, White experienced similar success with the Trojans. The former Denver South and Chatfield star finished his USC career with a school-record 57 touchdowns in three seasons. Preparing for this week’s NFL combine in Indianapolis and the April draft, White recently spoke about his future, the past and what he would do if he were a general manager with the first pick this spring.

Anthony Cotton: How long have you been dreaming about this?

LenDale White: Probably since about the age of 10. I had played for a couple of years and my friends and I had this school project – where do you see yourself 50 years from now. And I said I’d be playing in the NFL someday. As time progressed, my overall thoughts became a dream come true for me. It became a real-life situation. As it got closer, I just worked harder and now it’s here.

AC: Going into the combine, do you consider yourself a pro athlete now, or do you still lean toward college?

LW: I feel like I’m in between. I can’t go back to college to play football, but I wouldn’t call myself a pro, either.

AC: Tell me about the workouts in Florida.

LW: I’m at the IMG Academy. One of my trainers is there.

AC: I was there last year when (former Utah quarterback and No. 1 NFL pick) Alex Smith was preparing for the draft.

LW: (Injured New York Jets quarterback) Chad Pennington is there now working with his shoulder and stuff. I’m just working and trying to get a lot better.

AC: Have you talked with Pennington at all?

LW: I’ve talked with him every day. He jokes around with me all the time, trying to see where my head is. He’s asked where I want to get drafted, how’s my training coming. Just giving me words of advice.

AC: How excited are you about it all – the draft, finding out where you’re going to play …

LW: Other than playing for the national championship … for me to be in this situation is sort of surreal. You have to pinch yourself to realize that it’s really happening. You don’t know if it’s real, you don’t know if it’s fake, you don’t know if it’s really happening.

AC: Have you talked with any pro teams yet?

LW: Not yet. I guess I’ll get the chance at the combine to talk with everyone.

AC: What’s the latest sense of where you might go in the draft?

LW: I’ve been hearing all kinds of stuff. Chad said I might go at No. 4 to the Jets. There’s been No. 5 to Green Bay, 10 to Carolina. There’s been talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots. It just depends on who needs what at the right time and how I work out for them.

AC: Your decision to come out, the idea that you could go as high as No. 4, I don’t know if that was the case entering your junior season. Were your accomplishments this past year the reason you decided to leave?

LW: It was definitely a key factor. Just playing in three national championship games in three years and winning two of those, having back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons, leading the nation in scoring, and having everybody leaving and the team splitting up the way it did, I thought about what more could I accomplish? Or how good would it be? Or would I really want to carry the ball 30 times a game? There were things like that, and I thought the best situation for me and my family would be to leave school. It’s been a dream and an aspiration for me my whole life to be able to take care of my mother and my grandmother. Once this opportunity approached, for me it was kind of like a no-brainer. If I can take care of my family, that’s what I’d rather do.

AC: But some would say you could have had a pretty good run at the Heisman Trophy next season.

LW: I heard that a lot. To me, having those awards, it means a lot, but I didn’t understand why I wasn’t up for them in the first place, given what I had done in college. And that wasn’t what was driving me in the first place. The Heisman wasn’t at the top of my list of what I wanted to accomplish in college football. For me, college football was winning with my teammates and having fun. Winning all the Heismans in the world, if I wasn’t winning games and having fun with my teammates, it wouldn’t be worth it.

AC: Will it be weird then, playing against Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush in the pros this year?

LW: It will be, given how close me and Reggie and Matt were. It will definitely be different seeing as how we shared the same backfield for so long. But it will also be a lot of fun. Our competitive spirit against one another is going to bring out the best in each other in the NFL. I’m going to enjoy playing against those guys a lot.

AC: Given that competitive spirit, was there ever a part of you that saw them winning Heismans, and feeling like you were overlooked or over- shadowed?

LW: Honestly, I don’t believe so at all. It might have looked like that, or some media portrayed it like that, but I felt like what I accomplished with that team, that my teammates knew what kind of instrument I was with the band. They knew how good I was and how I fit in. That was all I needed to know. My teammates accepted me and gave me praise. They knew I was there fighting with them every week. I don’t need newspaper or magazine stories making me out to be “The Man.” I know I couldn’t have done anything without those guys. I definitely didn’t feel slighted at all because I did what I could for my team. If that wasn’t enough for the world, then fine.

AC: How often do you think about that fourth-down carry (in the Rose Bowl against Texas)?

LW: I don’t really think about it anymore; I can’t take it back. There were a lot of things that happened in that game that shouldn’t have happened. We should have been up way more than we were in the first half, but I can’t put the blame on my offensive line or quarterback or coaches or nobody. That day God called on Texas to win; it was their time. We had won so much, it was somebody else’s time to win. I guess it kind of humbled us in a way. We had gotten to the point where we didn’t think anybody could beat us. When you start getting big-headed, and thinking that nothing can happen to you, something like that happens to you.

AC: Let’s take you out of the equation. If you’re an NFL team, who do you pick first in the draft?

LW: Not me?

AC: Nope, you can’t pick yourself.

LW: That’s hard. It depends on which team is picking first.

AC: Well, let’s say the Texans.

LW: If it were me, I’d probably take Reggie Bush. But then I’d trade him for stuff that my team needed, like on the offensive line. But I’d probably take Reggie. He holds a lot of the power in the draft right now.

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